


Expectations

by sardonic_symphonic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Genre: Acceptance, Asexual Character, Bruce Banner-centric, Coming Out, F/M, Not Beta Read, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 14:43:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5209772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sardonic_symphonic/pseuds/sardonic_symphonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She brought him back for a study session in her dorm, just the two of them.</p>
<p>Betty Ross was the first person he told.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Expectations

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of Asexual Awareness Week and National Coming Out Day.

Betty Ross was the first person he told.

Bruce didn’t have a word for it then, of course. It was the late 1990s. No one did. 

“It's not you, and I mean that. Really.”

It stuck to the roof of his mouth, behind his molars.

He played his own psychiatrist for years before this, trying to diagnose a pathogen to his symptoms. (Maybe it he still hadn't matured. Maybe childhood trauma locked his emotional growth in a straight jacket and left it to perpetually crave babyish comforts. Maybe it was the mommy problems, the daddy problems.) And he didn't want to hear his hypotheses confirmed. Especially not by her. Because Betty let him imagine it would work out somehow. Her soft touches never strayed from his shoulders, his elbows, his knuckles, his palms. She never looked expectant, either. There wasn’t any pleading in her eyes, no waiting, nothing anxious. Even at parties, she wanted to dance with him only like in the movies, front-to-front, at an arm's length. 

Bruce didn’t think she was religious. She never wore rosaries and she took the lord’s name in vain and drank at parties. Not that it would be such a bad thing, if she was celibate. But Bruce didn’t like the idea of worshiping a God who never responded to his voicemails. 

Or his mom’s. 

It was thoughts like those that made him hypothesize illness. 

After a pause, Betty curled a corkscrew behind her ear, blinking the mild confusion from her dark eyes. “Does it make you upset?”

It wasn't mockery. It wasn’t accusation. It was genuine, cage-free, homegrown, organic curiosity. But not the sort she showed for specimens in Mol-Bio. 

“What?”

His left hand went to scoot his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose. Bruce shortly realized that his folded specs were in his left. 

They both exhaled in the semblance of laughter, his pained, hers untouched by his sudden confession. 

“I mean do you—do you wish you wanted that sort of thing?” She rephrased, gesticulating away the thickening air. 

Another release of CO2 and empty sound. Bruce wanted to scream. 

No, no, no. Not like that. Not at her, no. Never at her. _(Never like Brian. Never like Brian.)_

But it was obvious, so damn obvious. Was it not written across his forehead in Sharpie, coming down his neck in rivets of acid? 

Why would anyone want to feel like this? Parched for touch, unable to safely quench the thirst for fear of drowning, it was some kind of Brothers Grimm curse. The longing to wrap himself in her fleece affection had to compete with, and always lost to, the fear of an expectation. It hollowed out his gut, that possibility of being unable to deliver, or, even worse, being forced to. 

But he didn't wish he wanted it, to use her speaking, however puzzling it was. Coitus, mating, sex—colloquially called a number of vulgar things—Bruce never remembered being interested. It wasn't hot. It wasn't romantic. 

With his parents it was ugly. But that was besides the point. 

_Hypoactive sexual disorder. Unresolved childhood trauma. Depression. Take some pills. Take some therapy. Take a go with men, maybe. Take a look at the facts, jackass._

The only reason he spoke was because of that look she had. Betty remained ever calm, ever patient, a willful mangrove in a storm. 

She was built from the debris of a different ruined home. They didn't talk about that yet. But Bruce somehow knew. 

He grit his teeth behind thin lips. “I don't. It's just… it's how it is.” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay?”

“Yeah. It's is. Okay.” 

Floundering for some sort of way to stop the mental short circuit, he reached for her hand, as though her flesh would crumble to butterscotch sand. Betty responded with her remarkable aptitude for reading, as though he was about to fall off her dorm bed. He crashed against her shores. 

“You're disappointed,” he said. Nothing pointed to this statement, but there was bile in his throat and he needed to spit it out. 

“I'm not, Bruce. I'm not.” 

“You should be.”

She was hushing him. Why was she hushing him? It probably had something to do with the way he was dissolving into tears, but Bruce could only really concentrate on stifling any vocal confirmation of the face. Betty shoved away their textbooks and notes to properly bring him into an embrace. 

She smoothed out the crinkles on the back of his button-up, plain and tender and unwavering. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want. And if you do want to, we’ll take it at your pace, okay?” 

He croaked out a “why?” to which she squeezed him in closer.

“Because I like you.”

Bruce wanted to ask her about that part too, but he figured now wasn’t a good time. 

“And I mean that. Truly.” 

Betty pulled back to look him square in the eyes. With the best smile he could manage, grateful and sniffling, he nodded. 

“My roommate’s gonna be out all night. You don’t have to stay, if you’re not comfortable with that—”

“I do want to stay, Bet.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I… I’d like to hold you.” 

She grinned at him, all bright and rosy, and pecked him on the cheek. 

“I’d like that too.”


End file.
